Doloris Anoma Maze is a mind-blowing, expansive, immersive art maze where you climb, slide and crawl through a labyrinth of beautiful and surreal spaces.
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What is Doloris Anoma Maze?
Doloris Anoma Maze is a unique immersive art maze in Utrecht. You enter alone, and traverse from room to room via ladders, crawlways, staircases and hidden doors, passing through a huge variety of surreal and beautiful spaces.
Doloris have taken the decision to publish very few images of the interior of the maze online… and this is a good decision. Once you get inside it is truly mind-blowing in its beauty, imagination and scale.
One moment you find yourself in a library, the next in a barn, the next in a cave with a full-sized car crashed into the wall. You crawl and clamber in an exhausting process of extremely hands-on exploration… and in doing so you occasionally find beautiful secrets tucked away in unlit corners.
There is no story to the experience, and no particular goal other than to explore and to experience the maze. There are a few very light puzzles in some areas, but for the most part you don’t need to engage your brain – only to joyfully and freely explore.
Though you enter the maze alone (even if you came with a group), there are dozens of other people in there at the same time as you. There is a bar attached where you can have a drink before or after exploring the maze.
Doloris Anoma Maze is the second maze of this kind that Doloris have built. The first is Doloris Meta Maze in Tilburg. The two are very similar, but Doloris Anoma Maze is slightly larger, slightly newer, and a bit more ambitious than its predecessor. If you can only visit one of the two mazes, Doloris Anoma Maze is the one I’d recommend.
The Good Stuff
➕ The maze is incredible. It is a vast and mind-bending space full of immersive surprises. You can wander for an amazing length of time, discovering new rooms and new areas, feeling completely lost in an ever-changing and richly-detailed maze. It really is like slipping through to another surreal dimension.
It’s not just visual, either – the maze makes excellent use of sound, lighting, tactile stuff (and even scent) for an experience that engages all your senses.
➕ Just exploring is a joy. There’s nothing to accomplish when visiting Doloris Anoma Maze. There are no goals (except, perhaps, to find the exit once you’re ready to leave) and few puzzles to solve. The hours you spend in the maze are hours of child-like exploration and wonder. It is an immense amount of fun.
➕ Phone use is discouraged. You’re asked not to take your phone into the maze itself. Inevitably, people still do, but whilst exploring you’ll for once not be constantly surrounded by people locked into their phone or taking pictures for Instagram. The vast majority of visitors are fully engaged with the space.
This also has the added advantage that pictures of the interior of the maze aren’t readily available online. Entering the maze is a true step into the unknown, which makes the feeling of discovery and exploration all the sweeter.
➕ It does not require language or puzzle-solving. To advance through the maze you require nothing other than a willingness to explore and a certain level of mobility and fitness. You can enjoy Doloris Anoma Maze even if you don’t speak Dutch or English… and you can explore every bit as freely as anyone else even if you’re not good at solving puzzles.
The Bad Stuff
➖ Doloris Anoma Maze is physically demanding and claustrophobic. It may not be right for everyone. If you don’t like confined spaces, feeling lost or now knowing where the nearest exit is… this attraction may not be for you.
It is, of course, worth mentioning that the uncertainty, the vastness of the maze, and the physical demands of exploration are also what make the experience so good for many people!
Practical Information
You can bring bags and coats with you to the venue and store them in lockers before you enter the maze. You are asked to store all of your stuff and take nothing into the maze – especially not a phone. This is good advice: you’ll be doing a lot of movement in the maze, and may well lose important items if you keep them in your pockets.
There is a bar that you can visit before and after your experience. You are invited to have a drink beforehand, and your group will enter the maze one by one over the course of several minutes. While being separated from the people you came with can be daunting, don’t worry: you’ll eventually find one another inside the maze (and besides, solo exploration is fun and exciting).
You don’t need to speak Dutch to enjoy this immersive experience.
There are toilets in the bar, and also at least one toilet in the maze itself… although you may have to explore for quite some time before you find it!
This experience involves a lot of climbing, crawling and physical exertion. You should wear light clothing, and leave behind everything except your base layer so that you don’t get too hot. This experience may not be suitable for you if you have claustrophobia or limitations to your mobility.
The length of this experience is up to you. You can stay in the maze as long as you please. We’d recommend at least two hours to explore it thoroughly. You can leave as soon as you find the exit, or sooner if you need to through one of many emergency exits around the experience. You can make use of these exits without triggering an emergency alarm. Once you leave the maze you cannot re-enter it without buying another entry ticket.
You should plan to book several days in advance to ensure you get the time slot you want. Bookings can be made via the Doloris website.